Debate the issues facing Seattle Public Schools, share your opinions, read the latest news. Organize and work for high quality public schools that educate all students to become passionate, lifelong learners.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Odds and Ends

Just to be clear about the grandfathering of siblings, here's the official word from the SPS News and Calendar piece on the Transition Plan:

In-coming kindergarten siblings:The School Board and staff at Seattle Public Schools have a sincere desire to enable incoming, non-attendance area kindergarten siblings to be assigned to the same school as their older sibling if requested by the family. While we are not able to guarantee sibling grandfathering, we are fully committed to making every reasonable effort to accommodate as many kindergarten siblings as possible in their older sibling's school. The Transition Plan outlines a series of steps to accomplish that goal. For families whose preference for the Kindergarten sibling to attend the older child's school cannot be honored, we are committed to a "safety net" so the students will not have to attend a different school. (bold and italics mine)

STEMSTEM Open House @ ClevelandSaturday, January 23, 20109:30 am – 12:00 pm5511 15th Avenue SouthA continental breakfast will be served starting at 9:30 am. Presentations will start at 10:00 am.

Also, STEM will be one topic at the Board Work Session next Wednesday, from 4-6:30 p.m. Also on that agenda is High School Reform/Language Arts.

Interesting article from the South Seattle Beacon on STEM. From the article:

"With about 700 students, Cleveland supports 300 students below its capacity, but principal Princess Shareef said the decision was not based on the enrollment numbers.

"We could function as a comprehensive high school, but with the new assignment plan, the reality is there are more students living in the Rainier Beach [High School] area and Franklin [High School] area than live in the Cleveland area," shareef said. "Therefore, it makes sense to have Rainier Beach and Franklin be comprehensive high schools and have Cleveland as an option school."

Charlie, anyone, help me out here. I hadn't understood that there are not enough students in the Cleveland area to fill the school. My understanding had been that there are many students between RBHS and Cleveland who leave to go to other high schools and, if they all came back, both schools would be nearly full.

Also:

"What I'm concerned about is that I want a balanced program; I want the school to remain diverse. The teachers and families want it to remain diverse, but when we have community meetings, families from our community haven't been showing up," Shareef explained. "I want the Beacon Hill community to understand what is going to be happening here and for them to consider having their kids be students here."

And this:

"I don't get a feel for the community around Cleveland. When we've offered, I haven't seen this particular community be involved," Shareef said. "I don't know if they know about it and know how to access it - that's a big concern for me. I want everyone to be able to access it."

If she is expressing concern over neighborhood outreach, then I hope the district is helping her.

Board Director Community Meetings

(Update: A reader said Harium's blog had a meeting tomorrow; I was going with the Board calendar at the district. So give it a try, I suppose.)Jan 23 2010 (Sat)Diva Espresso Lake City Way & 80th NE9:30 AM to 11:30 AM

There are none scheduled for this weekend. I hope that we see a couple of Board members at the STEM presentation.

Seattle, Washington – January 21, 2010 – A hearing is set for Tuesday,January 26th, at 8:30 AM, in Room W 842 of the King County Courthouse.The courthouse is located at 516 3rd Avenue, Seattle. Judge JulieSpector will hear the the appeal of a Seattle School Board vote last Mayto adopt the Discovering Mathematics high school textbook series. Theappellants contend that the school district acted arbitrarily andcapriciously by voting 4 to 3 to adopt a type of textbook associatedwith a widening achievement gap between minority students and whitestudents, and between low-income and other students.

Thanks, Maureen. I hope someone who goes asks for details about the kindergarten surge capacities, because families really want to know: which schools are being considered for 1/2 day K only? When will families learn exactly which surge strategies are being considered for which schools so that they can make the best possible choices come open enrollment?

I was really surprised that no one asked for details about these strategies at the Board meeting the other nite (at least not during the part I watched, which I believe was pretty much the entire transition discussion)

I suggest you request a meeting with your principal and concerned parents to talk about what will happen at your school, whether they anticipate too many sibs and if so, how they plan to accommodate those sibs. It is beginning to seem like principals will have some influence on this aspect of the NSAP implementation. They also have a vested interest in trying to keep their school community together.

I also have the impression that much of the implementation will be done by hand (!). Does anyone have any real information about how the plan will be implemented? Is the VAX over and done with?

sixwrens, we had a PTSA meeting this week. Believe it or not, but principals have not been given details about what might happen at their schools yet as far as surge strategies go. Yes, the principals are involved locally and working with families to determine how many affected siblings are out there, but the district does not appear to have discussed specific options with specific schools yet. I agree that it's a good idea to be having these conversations as a community at the local level, but people also need to be aware that they may not ultimately have control.

I know from my experience two years ago that capacity decisions get made after open enrollment and the principal does not always have a say in the matter. I don't mean to sound like an alarmist, but the trends lately are all for central control over local control. We need to keep asking what the plans are before they are foisted upon us by the district.

Considering the district apparently spent $14 million on migration from the VAX over five years ago, you'd think we'd be through with it by now. (Source: http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Colton_Travis_48045427.aspx)

"Travis joined APQC in July of 2005 from the Seattle Public School District. He was the Enrollment and Technology Planning Manager responsible for forecasting, work order processing, end-user computer support for the Facilities Division, strategic analysis for all student assignment policy and procedures, student appeals and project management for technology initiatives.

"Travis co-managed the $14 million migration of the VAX/INGRES student information system at the Seattle School District onto a Windows 2003/SQL Server 200/.NET platform. He instituted and managed project status and weekly task schedules, developed a change control management system and managed a staff of 12 people responsible for social research, operations, strategic technology planning and data management."

So did this really happen? or was Travis Colton inflating his resume? or what?

Jut a quick update:McGilvra's principal DeWanda Cook-Weaver was placed on leave today. Retired Bagley principal Birgit McShane will serve as acting principal.This is an incredible relief to our teachers and school community. Our school has been in complete chaos since she arrived.Any feedback about her Ms. McShane would be great appreciated.

Birgit McShane was principal at Graham Hill when we started in the Montessori Preschool and was there until SPS moved her to start up the Montessori program at Daniel Bagley. She was a terrific principal, and we were all sad to see her go.

Adding to the odds and ends-The Alternative School Coalition is working to host an Option School Fair. We hope to promote understanding of option programs district wide and to assist with enrollment in option schools. We've been in contact with Board Directors and multiple district staff and departments. We envision a family-friendly event, attracting students from across the city, timed with the open enrollment period.

Principal McShane, from what I know and hear, is a fine principal. I believe she started the Montessori program at Bagley and was well respected. Sherry Carr probably knows her as Sherry's kids were at Bagley.

you referred to my public testimony preceding the January 20 School Board vote, in which I unsuccessfully urged the School District to include in its Transition Plan this crucial provision that would allow grandfathered older siblings of preschoolers to transfer in Fall 2010 into their own attendance area school. “Upon request, grandfathered attendance area older siblings at any grade will also be assigned to their attendance area elementary school for 2010-11, whether or not their younger sibling has already reached school age.” As I pointed out, without this Section II.B amendment, the Transition Plan is based on a false mathematical premise and will itself create the so-called “capacity” problem it refuses to resolve.

Your agreement on this point welcome. You write: “On this issue, I think it would have been worth trying to put older sibs at the younger sibs' attendance area school and see how it played out. If the goal was everyone who wanted a neighborhood school at that school, they should have tried it. They seemingly have little data to support their claims and the district is waiting to see how it plays out. Why not play it out at the attendance area schools?”

Actually, Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson’s last-minute January 17 supporting statistical analysis rests on a basic math error, so that the district has in fact no data to support its repeated claim of a “capacity” problem, other than that resulting from this particular self-created artificial clog upon the movement of attendance area older siblings of preschoolers.

Logically, the automatic transfer of grandfathered older siblings into Grades 1-5 of their own attendance area elementary school cannot create any capacity problem, because each such transfer simultaneously opens up an empty seat at the same grade in their grandfathering school. Since the net impact on capacity is mathematically zero; there is no logical capacity objection against allowing grandfathered older siblings of preschoolers to transfer in 2010-11 into their own attendance area school. If you shake a bag with 250 beans in it (i.e. all the grandfathered older siblings), and then open up the bag, you will still find 250 beans in that bag.

Moreover, the Draft Transition Plan refuses to recognize that every grandfathered older sibling who chooses to transfer into their attendance elementary school will also invariably pull all their younger preschool siblings behind, removing that entire family from any need to jostle with other incoming Kindergartners at the doors of the grandfathering non-attendance area school. Effectively, in one stroke this simple fix thus resolves the so-called sibling grandfathering “capacity” problem, which in fact is entirely the product of the Transition Plan’s self-defeating design.

In passing this deeply flawed Transition Plan, the School Board got the elementary math all wrong. They should, could, and still can guarantee both sibling unity and school stability to all grandfathered attendance area children, by amending the Transition Plan now to include the language quoted above. Fortunately, this remains a simple fix. It is not yet too late.

"For families whose preference for the Kindergarten sibling to attend the older child's school cannot be honored, we are committed to a "safety net" so the students will not have to attend a different school."

I presume, at the least, that the last sentence should read "a different school from each other".

But, on top of that, are they reverting back to the "we'll find some school, somewhere" rather than that this "different" school will be the attendance area school, if that's the parent's preference?

BUT...if kids together is most important, the District promises to make it happen. if it can't happen at the eldest's school...or the attendance school... because of crowding, they'll find a school in the service area that has room for both.

does that mean it will be the least-popular school(s)? well, yup, probably. But not necessarily...as demographics and facility size will also have some bearing on capacity in this next year...

In a well defined plan it would be easy to guarentee sib's together. Sadly, as several have noted, this is a deeply flawed plan, followed by even worse execution. For example, in our West Seattle neighborhood the new boundaries are cut off 1 block North and 1 block West of our school. The combined area of the New and Old areas are almost 150% larger than the new area alone, plus many families are from out of either area. Those of us cut off were assigned to a school that is not really even in our neighborhood, with much lower perceived quality of education. Therefore, practically nobody will "voluntarily" send their children there. It is impossible to guarentee all families in the combined old and new areas access (our school is overcrowded with portables before all this, btw) access. Of course everyone could see this coming, but the district ignored it. "Sibling Parent's" math would work perfectly in a well designed plan, but not in this one.

west seattle is a mess. i think SS sees it and understands it and in fact wants to tinker with the current plan to make the singular issues on the peninsula work out for families there.

but, the staff has insisted that the current computer is not up to the task of handling special coding to address the situation. therefore, they are saying "next year."

is this "fair" to WS parents affected THIS year? no. absolutely not. it stinks. is there a solution? apparently SS believes not...not without the help of upgraded enrollment software programming.

if this is not addressed by 2011-2012, the community should scream extremely extremely loudly. for this year, it seems everyone is at a loss/standstill. i don't have any better ideas. perhaps someone else does.

about the siblings, they are guaranteeing "reverse grandfathering" if the incoming K child cannot be accommodated at the older child's school. This is a subtle point in the documents, but here it is:

If the incoming K student applies just for the older sibling’s school during OpenEnrollment and is assigned to the new attendance area school instead, the older sibling will be assigned to the attendance area school upon request (assuming services needed are available at that school).

The only time that the district will essentially find a school with space for both kids is if the parents list multiple choices during Open Enrollment and the kids are split. Then, upon request, the district will find one school in the family's area with space for both.

So it looks to me like the vast majority of children will be together either in the older child's school or the new reference school. We'll see how it plays out, but some schools are either going to have a large cohort of incoming kindergarteners or the already-large higher grade cohorts are going to be made bigger.

The *problem* with SiblingParent's plan is that the only families that would exercise that option are ones trying to leave a less desirable school for a more desirable school.

The people currently in a school they like mostly do not want to pull our their thriving happy child and transfer them somewhere else in the middle of their elementary school experience. That's why most arguments have been to get the incoming children into that school, NOT to get all children into the new attendance area school.

Mathematically, the *best* plan would have been a bandage plan: rip it off knowing it's painful but then it's over -- all children go to their new attendance area school on day 1, end of story. I'm not advocating for that, but it would have been the only way to avoid overcrowding at certain schools.

Yes, West Seattle is a mess indeed. It began last year when the centrally located Pathfinder program displaced the Cooper population, causing a counter-clockwise shift in the attendance areas for all the North end schools, away from their natural neighborhood boundaries. They were actually fine where they were before, already full and right-sized for their neighborhoods.

But now, the dim bulbs at SPS have now made it worse, much worse.

Sundquist tried to alleviate some concerns by giving preferential treatment to those who live near the N/S border in WS, with his attempts to allow 3 schools to feed either Madison or Denny, but how is that fair when everyone else is stuck with what they get? Ironically, Sundquist accused KSB of giving preferential treatment to only K8 kids when she offered her amendment to allow grandfathering of transportation for them. A little hypocritical of him to accuse her of preferential treatment, wasn't it?

Sundquist is great at framing issues in self-serving ways to satisfy himself that he's doing the right thing, yet, he repeatedly talks from both sides of his mouth. He's too often a mouthpiece and an apologist for the district, and seems to have blind faith in their integrity and competency. Meanwhile they tear apart WS neighborhoods he's supposed to represent. I can't seem him remaining popular with all the hell families in WS have been put through on his watch.

wseadawg and others you are right on! The district and our director have just caused complete chaos and inequity here in WS. Our "Southern" HS/MS pair will be overcroweded with few open seats, while our "Northern" HS/MS pair will be starved of feeder students and funding. On the elementary scorecard it is even worse! At least 4 boundaries are just insane - cutting off within a block or two of the TRUE neighborhood school. The wrong 2 schools closed, 4 schools already overcrowded and with portables, 2 more listed by the district as too crowded to accommodate sib's, 2 switching "north/south" feeder patterns (with years of trailing sibling issues), 1 (sort of) International school whose students had been promised a path that is now gone. More portables apparently coming, dangerous walk zones created... the only ammendment our director offered was to put some families in our wealthiest neighborhood back in "their" local school. It all makes me ill.

WSNorth: Get organized, show up at Sundquist's meetings and give him a piece of your mind. He needs to hear it. Right now he feels that most people support him and only a vocal minority complain. He seems satisfied that he's doing a great job, which, at this time, I can't understand.

While I appreciate some things he's done and tried to do, and generally think he wants to make things better, he's acquiescing in far too many critical changes that are really screwing his constituents long term.

Keep in mind this all comes right after all the arguments last year about how badly the district needed to close schools to save money. Well, how'd that work out?

To create true "neighborhood schools" they are cleaving neighborhoods in half and gerrymandering. And they call it "capacity management."

"If the incoming K student applies just for the older sibling’s school during OpenEnrollment and is assigned to the new attendance area school instead, the older sibling will be assigned to the attendance area school upon request (assuming services needed are available at that school)."

Lori -- I've been repeating this everywhere, too. The problem is, as Melissa has pointed out the district still isn't coming up with a clear statement of the sibling plan with something like a flowchart that shows what happens in different circumstances based on what you write down as your preference. I'm guessing (though it's dangerous) that this is because they hope that they will manage many people (or at least the loudest/most involved ones) by allowing the younger K-sib access to the older kid's school this year.

And, yes, SiblingParent -- your plan could have worked, if they weren't grandfathering current students into the school they currently attend. But, with that grandfathering, students are holding a place in a school that can't be given to an attendance area student.

Oh, and someone brought this up to me -- since students "new" to the school system are guaranteed entrance into your attendance area, why can't a current student just become a "new" one, if they want to return to their attendance area? Withdraw in June from your current school, and then, show up as a "new" student at your attendance area in September?

wseadawg, and others, the sad and outrageous thing is that getting organized and being vocal doesn't seem to help. My kids and I gathered and submitted signatures about the boundary lines, more signatures about the imbalance between "north" and "south" HS/MS enrollment, presenting the district's own "facts" back to them. The Madison PTA was equally outspoken on behalf of so many. My wife and I attended a half a dozen or so meetings between us, have emailed every member of the board repeatedly, and met several board members in person, letting them know the facts on the ground - how we and so many others feel! The West Seattle Director can only be ashamed of what he has allowed to happen in West Seattle, other than the addition of the 2 new Spectrum programs. I feel the only things left are to vote with our feet or pocketbooks or both.

If nothing else, the comments are in the record, and in a couple years, when more people realize how screwed up and dysfunctional the boundary lines are, maybe then they'll get adjusted so they make more sense to people who live in the cluster.

If a family's highest priority is to keep sibs together, there will I imagine be a number of schools in the district where that will easily be possible, because there are unpopular schools that even under the new SAP are likely to end up underenrolled.

The problem is that keeping sibs together is, I think, not actually the highest priority of most families, even those who are making it the centerpiece of complaint right now. I imagine most families have as a higher priority having their kids in a school that they think is a good school. And, once they are in a good school, the next priority is a good school very close to their house. People want to start with those guarantees and then get guaranteed sib linkage on top of them. Because not all schools are equally popular, the whole "250 beans in the bag" argument doesn't work -- parents are not neutral between schools and are going to want to move (or not move) kids strategically.

zb, I don't know how long you have to be out of the system to be considered "new" but there is a pretty solid record of how long you have to be out of the system to lose your assignment. Ask anyone who thought about taking a temporary assignment outside the area and was told that their child might not be able to return to their former school.

As soon as you officially withdraw your child you are considered out of the system.

But I bet SPS would make a distinction between "good" things that might come from being "new" to the system, and "bad" things -- that is, you couldn't use this method to be branded a "new student" and hence get a seat in your reference school, but you could sure be dinged as someone trying to manipulate the system.

Education Acroynms

Advanced Learning - SPS' three-tier program for advanced learners. Made up of APP, Spectrum and ALOs. (Note: the name of the district program is "Advanced Learning Services and Programs" but these three programs fall under "Highly Capable Services" of AL Services and Programs.

ALO - Advanced Learning Opportunity, the third tier of SPS' Advanced Learning program

AP - Advanced Placement. A national program of college-level classes given in high schools.

APP - Accelerated Progress Program. One of the levels of the Advanced Learning Program. NOTE: the name of this program is now "HIGHLY CAPABLE COHORT." This change occurred in 2014.

ASB - Associated Student Body. High school leadership groups.

AYP - Adequate Yearly Progress. Part of NCLB.

BEX - Building Excellence. SPS' capital renovation/rebuilding program that is funded via the BEX levy. Every 3 years there is the Operations levy and either the BEX or BTA levies as those two levies rotate in six year cycles).

BLT - Building Leadership Team. Staff members at a school who meet regularly to discuss building issues.

BTA - Buildings, Technology, Academics. The major maintenance/other capital fund for SPS. Originally BTA was to cover major maintenance like HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), roofs, waterlines, etc.) but now covers wide swaths of items like athletic fields, technology and funding academic needs.

CAICEE - Community Advisory Committee for Investing in Educational Excellence. Created by former Superintendent Manhas in 2008, to issue a report about reform recommendations for SPS.

CSIP - Continuous School Improvement Plan, the plan for improvement for each school as required by state law.

EOC - End of Course Assessments, given in math and science, required for high school graduationESEA - Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal law that governs education, includes the NCLB accountability provisions.

e-STEM or e-STEAM - STEM or STEAM curriculum with an environmental focus.

FACMAC - Facilities and Capacity Management Advisory Committee. A district committee comprises of an all-volunteer citizen group created in 2012 to help bring research and ideas to capacity management issues in the district.

FERPA - Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. A federal law that protects students' privacy

FRL - Free and reduced lunch.

FTE - Full Time Equivalent

FY - Fiscal Year

Highly Capable Services - NEW name (as of 2014) as umbrella name for these programs: Highly Capable Cohort (formerly APP), Spectrum and ALO (Advanced Learning Opportunities).

HSPE - High School Proficiency Exam, state assessment that replaced the WASL for 10th graders, required for graduation

HQT - Highly Qualified Teacher, a standard set by federal law

IA - Instructional Assistant

IB - International Baccalaureate program. An international program of advanced classes that can either be taken as stand alone or as part of an overall IB program.

IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The federal law that governs special education

MAP - Measures of Academic Progress. A computer-based adaptive assessment made by NWEA and originally purchased by the district for use as a district-wide formative assessment but now used for a wide variety of purposes.

MSP - Measurement of Student Progress, the state proficiency assessment that replaced the WASL for students in grades 1-8

MTSS - Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

NCLB - No Child Left Behind, a provision of the federal education law, ESEA, introduced during the George W. Bush administration